Claus Adam (November 5, 1917 – July 4, 1983) was an American

cellist The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

and

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

teacher as well as a composer. His music teachers include

Emanuel Feuermann Emanuel Feuermann (November 22, 1902 – May 25, 1942) was an internationally celebrated cellist in the first half of the 20th century. Life Feuermann was born in 1902 in Kolomyja, Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Kolomyia, Ukraine) to ...

for cello,

Stefan Wolpe Stefan Wolpe (25 August 1902, Berlin – 4 April 1972, New York City) was a German-born American composer. He was associated with interdisciplinary modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater and the kibbutz mov ...

for composition, and

Léon Barzin Léon Eugene Barzin (November 27, 1900April 29, 1999) was a Belgian-born American conductor and founder of the National Orchestral Association (NOA), the oldest surviving training orchestra in the United States. Barzin was also the founding mu ...

for conducting. He served as the second cellist of the

Juilliard String Quartet The Juilliard String Quartet (JSQ) is a classical music string quartet founded in 1946 at the Juilliard School in New York by William Schuman and Robert Mann. Since its inception, it has been the quartet-in-residence at the Juilliard School. ...

from 1955 to 1974, preceded by

Arthur Winograd Arthur Winograd (April 22, 1920 – April 22, 2010) was the music director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and the founding cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet.MARGALIT FOX"Arthur Winograd, Hartford Symphony Music Director, Dies at 90" ''The ...

and succeeded by Joel Krosnick, a former student of his. Composer and pianist

Awilda Villarini Awilda M. Villarini-Garcia (born 6 February 1940) is a Puerto Rican composer and pianist who publishes and performs under the name "Awilda Villarini." Villarini was born in Patillas. Her first piano teacher was her mother, who was a church orga ...

was also one of his students. He devoted the last decade of his life primarily to musical composition, and several of his works—including a cello concerto and a string trio—are published by G. Schirmer. Adam lived in Indonesia until he was six. His father, Tassilo Adam, was an ethnologist there. He then went to Europe and studied in

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

. In 1929 he went to the USA.Wierzbicki, James, "Adam, Claus" in Hitchcock, H. Wiley and Stanley Sadie, ed, ''The New Grove Dictionary of AMerican Music''. (New York: MacMillan, 1986) p. 4

References

1917 births 1983 deaths American classical cellists American music educators 20th-century American classical musicians Juilliard String Quartet members American expatriates in the Dutch East Indies German emigrants to the United States 20th-century American cellists {{Cellist-stub